Number of federal court heroin defendants 2009-2013

Marcus Davis, the 34 year-old Brooklyn, N.Y. man arrested in Burlington last week on a conspiracy to distribute heroin charge, will be back in U.S. District Court today for a hearing on whether he’ll remain in custody for foreseeable future.

Davis is viewed as a big-time heroin dealer by police. When he and a sidekick, Eddie Eason, were arrested last Friday, the 9,000 bags of heroin the police found in duffel bags allegedly belonging to Davis constituted one of the largest narcotic busts in state history, according to police.

The size of the bust makes Davis’ court case unusual, but the subject matter is not. Heroin cases now litter the docket in Vermont’s federal courts like never before, records show.

According to Vermont U.S. Attorney Tristram Coffin, 65 people facing charges related to heroin trafficking have appeared before federal judges in Vermont in the first nine months of 2013, ending Sept. 30.

That’s more than twice the number of heroin-related defendants who appeared in federal court in all of 2012, with three months still to go in 2013. It’s eight times as many heroin cases as the judges saw just four years ago in 2009.

“Both by quantity and quality measures, heroin prosecutions have become a more significant part of our caseload,” Coffin said in an interview this week. “But we still have more work to do, and some recent arrests show that.”

Coffin’s tabulations on heroin cases come six months after he staged news conferences in Rutland and Burlington and, along with police and drug treatment experts, announced an all-out push to confront the state’s mounting heroin problem.

Police, prosecutors and treatment experts say they’ve made progress on the issue since then, but the battle goes on.

“The problem can be beaten back,” Coffin said. “But we’re not going to eradicate it completely.”

Busy docket

Davis, when he appears before federal Magistrate John Conroy in court this afternoon, will become the seventh heroin-related defendant to appear before Conroy or one of Vermont’s two full-time judges this week.

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Heroin cases come in all sizes, the record shows.

Monday, Jennifer Stephens of Charlotte pleaded guilty to selling 10 bags of heroin to a police informant in November 2012 at a parking lot in South Burlington.

Stephens was already facing state charges for heroin possession at the time and, when she was searched at jail following her arrest, police found additional heroin secreted within her body, according to court records.

Tuesday, before Judge Christina Reiss in Rutland, Devon Chin accepted a plea deal and agreed to plead guilty to charges of possession with the intent of selling heroin on Feb. 24, 2013.

According to a police affidavit, Chin and another man were arrested shortly after they stepped off a Megabus that had just pulled into Burlington from New York City. Chin’s backpack was found to contain 600 bags of heroin and a larger quantity of bulk heroin, court records said.

Tuesday was also the day Eason, Davis’ sidekick, appeared before Conroy for a detention hearing. Both men are facing charges they conspired to distribute the 9,000 bags of heroin in Burlington.

Conroy, over the objections of Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher, decided to release Eason, 25, of Medford, N.Y., on conditions after hearing evidence that Eason had no prior criminal record and might only have traveled with Davis to “keep him company.”

Today, in addition to Davis’s detention hearing, Conroy is scheduled to hear a request to reconsider a detention order in the case of Bryan Richards.

Richards is one of nine people charged in connection with a major heroin ring that allegedly sold a potent form of heroin in Vermont over a two-year period.

“The brand of heroin Richards sold, known as ‘Chi town,’ (because it comes from Chicago), is the most potent form of heroin that has been available in Burlington over the last couple of years,” the government’s motion for detention in Richards’s case stated. “Law enforcement is aware of a series of overdoses that resulted from use of Chi town heroin.”

Meanwhile, two pre-trial conferences are scheduled for Judge William K. Sessions’s courtroom involving charges Aaron “Pop” Gray and Jonathan Stewart conspired to sell heroin in Burlington in December 2012.

Gray and Stewart, both of Philadelphia, Pa., were arrested after a police informant made a controlled buy of heroin at an apartment on the corner of Pitkin Street and Manhattan Drive.

Police alleged Gray was the leader of the drug dealing operation and recruited Stewart and other people to serve as couriers for him. Stewart had more than 1,141 bags of heroin in his possession at the time he was arrested, court records stated.

Gray attempted to flee the scene when he saw officers approaching the apartment but was quickly captured by police.